


Not A Thing

by Sycamore_Southers



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: F/M, Heartwarming, Humor, NaLu if you squint, NaLu vs. NaLi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 23:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sycamore_Southers/pseuds/Sycamore_Southers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lisanna Strauss is adjusting to life back in Earthland while trying to reconnect with her old flame.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not A Thing

It was a fun place to be, the Fairy Tail guildhall. Even when mages were fighting and food was flying and furniture was breaking. Lisanna missed it while she was in Edolous, which is strange to her because they were essentially the same. The same people at any rate.

It only takes her walking through the massive double doors she doesn’t recognize and being pleasantly assaulted by her guild mates to remember the difference even though she can’t quite attach a word to it, yet. Relaxed, maybe.  She stands behind the counter with Mirajane smiling easily and enjoying the company. From her stool she can practically watch everyone like a movie, all the characters behaving exactly as she’d expect. Kana guzzling a barrel of beer, Reedus sitting in his hot-air-balloon sized body like he had just succeeded on a diet while painting, Alzack and Biska pretending not to be crushing on each other…

Refreshing? That could work, it certainly was a breath of fresh air for Lisanna to see everyone acting the way they were supposed to be.

Cheerful. Which was probably the most disorienting aspect of Earthland Fairy Tail, or Earthland at all after two years in Edolous. It was wonderfully strange not to feel the oppressive weight of everyone’s anxiety. So maybe the word she was looking for was light…

By midday Lisanna was already comfortable, she knew it wouldn’t take her long to adjust. Heck, it only took a brief moment and then a long hug for Mira and Big-Brother-Elf to get used to the idea of Lisanna’s second coming. And while the guildhall was certainly rowdy, nothing had broken yet and Lisanna sat down on her stool tugging at her short silver hair noticing Natsu’s absence. He had cried when he saw her in Edolous and thought she was just a doppelganger and he had cried again when he found out she was the genuine-Earthland Lisanna after-all. But now it was her first day back in the guild and he wasn’t anywhere at all.

“So, did you meet any cute boys over in Edolous?” Mira practically sings in her high-pitched voice that kind of matched her hair and her smile.

Lisanna smiles with coy eyes, “Everyone in Edolous looks the exact same as they do here!”

The double doors burst open but no one comes through. Then while blinking Lucy suddenly appears in front of the Straus sisters looking desperate. “Quick, Mira!” Her little blonde half pony is askew with the ribbon ragged. The strap of her tank top is tearing. “Code Strawberry. Immediately!”

Lisanna looks surreptitiously over to her sister who does not look confused at all. Instead she has the eyes of a combat commander in the CIC of a battle ship. She jumps on top of her stool and reaches out above her head. With the grace of a demonic ballerina Mirajane pulls a container off the shelf. “Lisanna, get me a plate!”

Bewildered but too alarmed to question Mira she tosses her a plastic plate.

Mira’s eyes glow in frustration, “A real plate!”

“Come on, come on!” Lucy begs while glancing behind her in fear.

Happy comes fluttering in with his blue fur frumpled. “They’re almost here!” he wheezes before collapsing on the counter.

Lisanna grabs a plate and Mira takes it from her while hopping off the stool. She yanks the lid off the container and covers it with the plate. Then flips the whole contraption upside down on the counter and removes the container revealing a bakery-ready Strawberry Short Cake.

Just then a big ball of pink hair and black cloths hurls through the air and hits against a pillar back first. A loud cracking sound breaks through the guildhall and everyone sits silently hoping it was Natsu’s back. Seconds later Gray barrels in and it’s clear that he is not the force behind his movements. He stumbles over to the counter and before passing out on the counter he manages, “That coal-for-brains ass-hat.”

Mira climbs over the table and leaps over the lump that is Gray with the cake firmly in her hand and glides over to the door. She’s met with a grumpy, furious, bad-tempered Erza. “How was the job?” Mira asks politely.

Erza squints her eyes and Lisanna imagines smoke coming out of her ears. “He ruined everything.” She re-quips into armor with too many swords to count. “And they let him.” She huffs a huge gust of wind through her nose and her armor rises. “He knew the risks.” Erza makes a move to stomp over to Natsu’s twitching body but Mira stops her, shoving the plate right before Erza’s eyes. “I had this prepared!” Mira smiles brightly.

Instantly Erza’s foul mood dissipates, her dangerous armor vanishes leaving her in just a breastplate and skirt with a giddy grin replacing her scowl. She finds an empty table and promptly begins stuffing her face.

Lisanna looks around the guildhall as everyone goes back to their own conversations and arguments. She’s about to rush over to Natsu when she realizes that Lucy already has.

She watches as Lucy lifts one of Natsu’s limp arms, tugs it back and forth and then casually drops it. Lucy then knocks on the wooden pillar a few times and calls out, “No worries guys, it was Natsu’s back after-all. The structural integrity of the Guild should be fine.” Everyone cheers happily and then resume their own activities.

Lisanna pouts her mouth sympathetically, poor Natsu.

Again she’s about to leave the safety of the counter to aid her dragon slaying friend when she sees Lucy crouching down beside him – with a lot less of an edge than she had while playing with his almost corpse. With the eyes of a Mantis Shrimp and the ears of a Bat (thanks very much to her take-over magic she can finally use again) Lisanna watches – not spying, watching – as Lucy pulls out a small box from the pouch she keeps her keys in. “This should make it better,” she says to a Natsu who was stirring slightly and coughing up sparks.

It’s a matchbox! Lisanna realizes as Lucy strikes a match creating a tiny flame. Then, like a mommy teaching her child how to swallow a pill, Lucy shoves Natsu’s cheeks together and pushes his mouth open. She drops the little flame into his mouth.

Reborn, Natsu sits up and smiles at Lucy. “You’re the best!”

“Yes I am,” Lucy says standing up and straightening out her tiny skirt. “And you’re an idiot!” She slaps him upside the head, “You went way overboard, and that was before pissing off Erza!” She turns away from him and drags her feet back towards the bar. “How am I gonna make rent this month?”

Natsu trails behind her with his elbows out hands latticed behind his pink head. “We’ll take a new job in a few days! You still have, what? Two weeks before your rent is due?”

A few days? The corners of Lisanna’s mouth pick up.

Lucy stops and stares at the ceiling, “It’s due in two days!” she wails.

Natsu gets in front of her, “Man, I’m so much sorrier than I was a second ago!” He grips her shoulders, “Tomorrow we’ll be, like, all over the job board. We’ll make so much money that you won’t have to worry about rent for a month!”

“Natsu, I always worry about rent by the month.”

Lisanna can tell by Natsu’s back that his face is earnest as he looks at Lucy. “Then for a year!”

Lucy sighs unhappily, “Even if we went on two jobs tomorrow, we’d end up losing at least a third of the reward in damages and then I’d have to split the money five ways – if we include Happy, which we shouldn’t. His share should go to me since half of my share always seems to go to buying him fish! I mean, seriously what are you spending your money on, where do you even live?”

“So we won’t invite Gray and Erza,” Natsu says effectively cutting her off mid rant, presumably before she got nasty. “And you can have my share.”

She still looks despondent.

“And instead of the cool fun awesome jobs we can take, like, six or seven dumb easy jobs. You will totally make your rent this month.” Natsu lets go of her shoulders.

“Really?” Lucy brightens as she resumes walking towards the counter. “But if we walk we’ll never make it in time to any of them…”

Mira abruptly appears beside Lisanna, “That’s a funny take-over form to take.” Mira giggles.

“Oh, this?” Lisanna says with unnecessary nerves pulsing through her chest. “I was practicing changing different parts of my body into different kinds of animals at the same time.” Then to prove a point to Mira – but also a little to herself – she morphs her left arm into a tentacle.

In the moment Lisanna looks away from her two guild mates who she was totally not spying on at all they show up right in front of her sitting on bar stools.

“For you, Luce, I’ll take the train.”

“Are you sure, because if we’re going to do all those jobs that means taking a bunch of trains back to back.” Lucy raises an eyebrow. “You sure you want to commit to that.”

“Yeah, I got this. Just pick jobs that are nearish to each other!” He smiles while tilting his head.

Lucy finally fixes the ribbon in her hair and hops off her bar stool with the energy of a dragon slayer. Lucy jaunts off towards the job request board singing a happy song to herself.

Natsu turns to Lisanna, and blinks a few times. And then a few more. “Lisanna, what’s wrong with your face?”

“Oh, this?” She says again. “Did you know that the Shrimp Mantis has 16 color receptors? They can see an infinite amount of colors that people probably wouldn’t even think of!”

“Mmm, shrimp!” Happy squeals, looking much better than he did when he first fumbled into the guildhall.

“I was just wondering where you had gotten off to Happy!” Natsu says looking up even though he can’t see Happy who sits cozily in Natsu’s hair like it’s a nest.

Lisanna’s blush subsides and she puts her regular face back on. Smiling with her chin tucked into her neck she looks at her childhood “husband” and their “son”. There went her few days…

Holding out eight papers Lucy comes back to the bar too soon.

“Be careful, Lucy.” Mira warns. “Once you take it out of the guildhall you are agreeing to do the job and will be penalized if you don’t fulfill it.”

“Team NaLu can handle it!” Natsu says with unwarranted confidence.

“Team NaLu?” Gray laughs awakening from his slumber.

“Yeah,” Natsu says liking it more and more as the word plays out in his mind. “Team NaLu. It’s important for kick-ass partners to have a kick-ass name. We’ll use it for when you and the armored she-witch don’t come along with us…”

“Ok, whatever,” Gray says. Then seeing Lisanna’s startled face he says, “what?”

“Um, Gray,” Lisanna says eyes darting to the side. “Where are your clothes?”

Natsu heaves off his chair guffawing as Gray gasps comically rubbing his head trying to remember when he had peeled his layers off.

“Lets get this party started!” Lucy chants holding out one of the job requests away from the others. “This one’s for tonight and its only one neighborhood over!”

“Awesome!” Natsu shouts “We get to walk!”

Turning her back to the rest of the guildhall while Gray looks for his clothes Lisanna mutters, “Team NaLu.” To herself, not liking it quite as much as Natsu seemed to. When she turned back around Natsu, Lucy, and Happy were gone.

 

Fairy Tail’s guildhall was still a fun place to be. Even without Natsu. Kana still drank her alcohol dutifully, Reedus painted, the cowboy/girl crushed on each other in semi-secret. Everyone went and came back on jobs in a way that meant there was always someone fun to hang out with no matter what time of day, week, or month. When Shadow Gear was on a job seeking an ancient manuscript, Lisanna played cards with Romeo, and when the Thunder Legion – sans Laxus – was away catching rouge bandits Lisanna worked on cross words with Levy. And when all else failed the bar was close enough to the notice board that she could always chat with Nab while he skimmed the job requests.

And while it still is fun, always fun and relaxed, and cheerful, and light, even without Natsu, Lisanna finds herself missing him more than when she was in Edolous.

“It’s been the best month having you work beside me like this,” Mira smiles at her sister with all her teeth. She pulls out a Sorcerer’s Weekly and flips through the pages looking for one spread in particular.

“Yeah it has.”

“Lisanna,” Mira pouts, pulls her eyebrows together, and puts down the magazine. “What’s the matter?”

Lisanna presses her mouth into a line and furrows her brow, “I’m not entirely sure.”

“You can talk about it with me if you want,” Mira offers.

Smiling, because she has the best most supportive sister and really she is pretty lucky, Lisanna says, “When I figure out the problem I will let you know.” She looks down at the bar table and then back up at Mirajane. “Is it ok if I take a break?”

“Sure,” Mira laughs, “take the day, we only have to do stuff when everyone breaks stuff or wants food!”

“Thanks Mira.” She unties her apron and sidles out from behind the bar. Waving good-bye for the night to her friends and guild mates she exists quietly between the two enormous doors.

She finds herself beneath a cherry blossom tree. She feels significant and symbolic sitting here with her back against the bark. It’s not like she and Natsu even spent much time by this tree. They spent most of their time together by their pretend home or in the guildhall. Maybe they sat here once or twice… The tree was more of a Natsu-Happy place because this is where they kept their savings. But the tree was still special to her, though morbidly so; it is where she and Natsu saw each other last before she died. Or at least everyone thought she died. Really she had just been sent off to an alternate reality, no big deal…

The sun was setting and the sky reminds her of a tie-dye t-shirt she used to where while she was in Edolous. The whole guild tie-dyed shirts without magic as a lets-all-actively-have-fun night. It was one of the rare nights that went uninterrupted by Erza Knightwalker.

“Hey Lisanna,”

Lisanna jumps out of her daydream. “Natsu?” How’d he know to find me here? “What are you doing here?”

He scratches the back of his head adorably, annoyingly. “I wrecked another town and Lucy’s short on cash so I cam here to dip into my savings.”

Lisanna melts a little at Natsu’s brand of charm. Then she reminds herself that it isn’t even directed towards her.

Natsu plops down beside her, “What’re you doing here?”

“It’s a nice place for a sunset,” Lisanna says copping out. It’s not like he doesn’t know how I felt back then.

“Sure is.”

Lisanna always pretended that Natsu was her first kiss. Not that they’d ever kissed at all here or in Edolous, but the part of that ached to find a way back to Earthland while she was gone imagined a life where she never got pulled away by the Anima in the first place. And in that life Natsu woke up one morning and decided to kiss her on the mouth. Then he’d been so embarrassed that he’d hide in his hovel of a house until he got impulsive enough to go back to the guildhall and kiss her again. This time slow and proper while putting one of his calloused hands on her jawline while the other worked it’s way through her hair. Big-Brother-Elf would go mad but Natsu would probably just say something like “A real man lets his sister kiss who she wants.”

But she did get sent to Edoulous and it was an ok life. Edolous Natsu didn’t have the courage to kiss her, not that mattered because he didn’t want to. Even when she got a second chance with her cute little dragon slayer he didn’t want her. He wanted a girl Lisanna was unfamiliar with. He wanted Lucy. Granted that Lucy scared the crap out of him… Her first kiss ended up being Bixlow. It felt like a mouth being pressed onto another mouth. Pleasant enough, but it wasn’t Natsu. And as she looks at him looking at the sunset she gets the feeling it never will be.

“Aren’t you supposed to be digging up your treasure?”

“I was waiting for you,” he says like it’s obvious.

“Huh?”

“Well, you’re sitting on the spot but you were thinking about something.” He says impatiently, like she should have assumed and understood. “I didn’t want to ruin it.”

It amazed her that he could be considerate enough to not ruin her space-out but thick enough not to realize that she wouldn’t get that without an explanation.

“Didn’t you miss me while I was gone?” Lisanna asks without a prompt.

Natsu’s face becomes embarrassed and angry, “Of course I missed you.” He tucks his chin inside his scarf hiding his mouth.

“Just because we used to spend time together, you know, when we were kids. And since I’ve been back, well I haven’t seen you for more than a quick catch-up at the bar.”

“I have to work, I’m on a team.”

Right, team NaLu. Or team NaLuHaGrayZaWenCar or whatever it was. She lifts the corners of her mouth a bit. Even when they were kids they never went on jobs together. The closest they came was when Mira invited him along on that S-Class quest. Big-Brother-Elf didn’t let and then she got sucked away to Edolous… NaLi never could have been a thing.

“We’re still friends though right?” She already knows his response and is annoyed by it.

“I love everyone in Fairy Tail, you’re my family and my friend.” At least he’s sincere. “You’re my nakama.”

Ouch, talk about friend-zoned.

“When we were kids it felt like you needed me around more…”

“I probably did.”

Lisanna stares at him wide-open-eyed amazed again. He could go from angry to glad to intense to light faster than most people can swallow water.

“I probably needed you more then,” Natsu repeats. “But then you were gone and I couldn’t find you even though I looked. I looked for you like I looked for Igneel but then I put up a headstone for you because I knew you were gone.” His expression was so much lighter than his words. He wasn’t smiling per say, but it certainly didn’t look like grief. He was more frowning contemplatively.

Lisanna imagined that if Happy saw him, he’d warn Natsu not to break his brain.

“You weren’t around so I needed you less. I never replaced you or filled the whole you left with something else. The whole just got smaller.” Only someone as simple and stupid as Natsu could come be insightful by accident.

She scoots over and then gets up. “I’m sorry for leaving,”

“Eh,” he rolls onto all fours and starts digging. “You didn’t mean to.”

 

Behind the bar of the guildhall along side Mira was a fun place to be. Always. Because there were always Fairies around. As soon as Lisanna stopped counting the hours between Natsu’s stops in the guild he seemed to come by more often. Today he comes sprinting in with Happy trailing behind quick and terrified. He rushes right up to the bar and coughs violently. Little flames crackle and spark out of his mouth. “Co-co-code Strawberry” He slips to the ground.

Lucy tumbles in through the doors dignity forgotten and moments later Gray flies in through the air.

“Ice-make tabletop!” He shouts smashing into the ice and saving his back from splinters.

Mira rushes for a plate while Lisanna does a giraffe take-over from the shoulders up and reaches for the container with her mouth.

“Luce,” Natsu cries. “The matches, I need the matches!”

Stumbling over her broken shoes, “These are for emergencies. What kind of dragon slayer relies on matches?”

“Then why do you have them?” Natsu grunts as they all count the seconds until Titania stomps in.

“Because you’re a reckless idiot.” But still Lucy digs into her pocket and fishes around for the matches. She turns to Mira, “You know I can’t help but think we should make these Strawberry Shortcakes easier to reach…”

Mira smiles and giggles and shrugs her shoulders not minding the hassle.

Erza stomps in with justified murder in her eyes.

“Natsu,” Mira looks like she just had an epiphany. “You should present Erza with Code Strawberry.”

“No way,” he watches hungrily as Lucy strikes a match against the tiny box. Then he looks at Lisanna like she’s new. “Lisanna, you want to try carrying out Code Strawberry out?” As if approaching Erza in this state was a marvelous adventure and not a risk on her life.

Lisanna searches for a reason not to

Chewing on Lucy’s fire Natsu grins, “You’ve got this!”

“You’re only saying that because you aren’t brave enough to go yourself,” Happy squeals.

“Maybe,” Natsu says honestly, “But I still think Lisanna’s got this.”

“Ok, then.” Lisanna grabs the cake from Mira before she has the chance to lose her nerve. “I’ve got this.” Her smile is like Ethrian that can’t hurt. She walks out from behind the bar towards Titania Erza with her back to team NaLu and her sister and her fears.


End file.
